Every year I lovingly look forward to my neighborhood’s garage sale. I’m very firm on my routine: I get up early. I go on foot. I buy breakfast from some kid selling food, but it has to be real food, not just Costco stuff. I walk fast. I am very efficient and business-like. One year […]
How to set up a family recycling center
May 4, 2012 by
I remember a long time ago at some college party someone asked the group to answer: “what progressive cause don’t you care about?” (This may have been what passed for a drinking game in my crowd. Good progressive-activist, triple-majoring, newspaper-editing students, we.) That was easy: the environment. I just couldn’t get my back up over […]
Urban vegetable gardening: Waiting to Plant
May 2, 2012 by
It is so, so hard to wait. In St. Paul, Minnesota, the last-frost date is May 15, and that’s how long you’re supposed to wait to plant your garden. Generally, I’ve taken this to mean Mother’s Day, and my mama’s day fun usually begins with a trip to the greenhouse and ends with me covered […]
How to sew easy quilted fabric cards
April 25, 2012 by
I’m not much of a sewist. As mentioned before, I’m most comfortable with straight lines and no patterns. But I do have a sewing machine and I love fabric. So when I stumbled on this tutorial by Dana at MADE for how to sew fabric cards using little bits of cute fabric, I was all […]
Urban Vegetable Gardening: Plant, ready, plan . . .
April 20, 2012 by
So much for plans. A few weeks ago I posted that I had grand plans for vegetable gardening this year. I had researched container and small-space gardening and pinned a bunch of cool-looking ideas. I meant to research what the perfect (probably heirloom) varietals of beans or peas or kale that would look awesome among […]
A clean conscience: Why I hire out housecleaning
April 16, 2012 by
Yesterday I spent eight hours cleaning my house and I didn’t even get to the third floor (the finished attic of a 125-year-old foursquare). It’s just as well, though, that’s my older son’s room and at the moment it is carpeted with Legos. I don’t really want to follow through on my threat to vacuum […]
How to sew an easy quilt for a big-boy bed
March 30, 2012 by
There’s nothing so tiny as your baby in his big-boy bed for the first time. (Well, maybe your newborn in his crib for the first time.) It’s hard on a mama, but it must be done. Last year, Noah was ready to graduate from the crib, as evidenced by his ability to escape from it. […]
Urban vegetable gardening: Garden dreams
March 27, 2012 by
My littlest sprite and his fairy, um, I mean sprite, garden. My house sits on a lot-and-a-half and for an urban home that means a huge yard. But since I have two boys, a play structure, a sandbox and must preserve enough space to play baseball, I don’t have a lot of space for a […]